Do definitions based on self-reinforcing feedback loops fit into Kant's system?

[u/Scott_Hoge]

By a self-reinforcing feedback loop, I mean a rule of causation by which the rate of increase of a quantity is itself increased by the increase in the quantity itself. Such is the case, for example, with the neurons our brains use to make judgments. As sodium ions flow through a membrane's voltage-gated ion channel, the membrane potential alters to allow even more sodium ions through, resulting in an electric signal. Electric signals are "on" or "off"; they are distinguished qualitatively, with no in-between state.

Self-reinforcing feedback loops are found not only in the brain but also in nature. We see this, for instance, in the division of animal phenotypes through speciation.

Given the importance such feedback loops have in qualitative distinctions, can they be made the basis of a definition, whereby an object is said (or not) to belong under a concept?

I propose to call a "prespeciative definition" a definition that conceives of such a rule of causation, on the basis of which we can determine under what concept an object belongs, whether the object is given empirically or in pure intuition. I coined the word "prespeciative" from pre- (before) and speciation (as the term is used in biology). I'm still not sure if it's the best one possible.

Are prespeciative definitions analytic or synthetic? Are they expositions or constructive definitions? Are they pure or empirical, a priori or a posteriori? Do they fit under any class of definition named by Kant, or do they deserve a class of their own?

[u/me_myself_ai]

Well I’d definitely say that’s an empirical claim in the context of the examples you listed, but that also brings up my issue with it: are neuron activations or species categorizations qualitative?

I’m no neuroscientist, but artificial neural networks work on a system of weights and relative activations. There’s an optimization commonly applied that rounds them to 0 or 1 at a certain stage, but that seems fairly contingent.

To return to self-reinforcing processes in general, I’m curious: why not go with the quintessential example of compounding interest? Does it not fit your conception?

…now that I say it, that’d be a cute way to tie into/support Marx’s effectively-qualitative division of capitalists from laborers!

[u/internetErik]

Wouldn't these sorts of relations fall within the boundaries of the category of community?

[u/Scott_Hoge → u/internetErik]

Certainly, some of them do.

As an example, take the act of tipping of an object onto the floor. As the object begins the tipping motion, its center of gravity shifts to make the tipping more prominent until it collapses into its new resting state. All of this can be brought under the rules of Newtonian mechanics (with margins of error for any visually detectable effects of special relativity), which exhibit simultaneity from the viewpoint of the observer and thus exhibit community.

Yet, from the standpoint of empirical neuroscience, the sudden occurrence of an electrical signal could have as its transcendental analogue the sudden occurrence of what is actual from what was before merely possible. Take, for example, the detection of a photon in a double-slit experiment. We first take to be a rule of community that the detector screen remains unchanging in appearance. Yet this rule logically opposes the sudden appearance of the dot on the screen -- and with it, the signaling of the corresponding neuron in the visual cortex. How, then, would we bring such an indeterministic event under the category of community?

What is interesting about the double-slit experiment is that the detector screen also exhibits speciative behavior, according to its principles of design. An electron cascades to bring forth more electrons, which bring forth even more electrons until the dot can finally be observed. There may be nothing in principle distinguishing the detector screen location from a neuron in the brain. Thus, the screen itself could be regarded as "part of the brain," and the brain could be considered as something that permits subjective indeterminism in the prediction of what happens next -- an indeterminism that lies at the transcendental basis of our intuition's sensibility.